- Feb 5, 2002
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From Patrick Pearse to George Floyd, they're a sign the political conversation has broken down
Crushed. Torn apart by wild beasts. Burnt alive. Roasted on hot coals. Beheaded. Starved. Stabbed. Stoned. Tied to a spiked wheel. It takes a strong stomach to navigate Catherine Pepinster’s fascinating book on martyrs. Suffice to say, they do not accrue their status gently. “Martyrs are heroes,” the author writes. “But there is no romance to their story. Their narratives are full of hostility and violence, pain and suffering.”
In the Christian tradition of which Pepinster largely writes in Martyrdom, the martyr knowingly accepts and endures unimaginable suffering by means of a particular form of stubbornness. This enables them to override a combination of intense psychological pressure and appalling physical pain, or the imminent promise of it.
Continued below.
The making of a modern martyr - UnHerd
Crushed. Torn apart by wild beasts. Burnt alive. Roasted on hot coals. Beheaded. Starved. Stabbed. Stoned. Tied to a spiked wheel. It takes a strong stomach to navigate Catherine Pepinster’s fascinating book on martyrs. Suffice to say, they do not accrue their status gently. “Martyrs are heroes,” the author writes. “But there is no romance to their story. Their narratives are full of hostility and violence, pain and suffering.”
In the Christian tradition of which Pepinster largely writes in Martyrdom, the martyr knowingly accepts and endures unimaginable suffering by means of a particular form of stubbornness. This enables them to override a combination of intense psychological pressure and appalling physical pain, or the imminent promise of it.
Continued below.
The making of a modern martyr - UnHerd
